The Return Of The Prodigal Son Analysis

The Return of the Prodigal Son

The story of the Prodigal Son is about a man who has two sons, the “Elder son” and the “Younger son”. The Elder son is very faithful to his father and to God. The younger son convinces his father to give him his inheritance before he dies and leaves the family. He goes off to distant lands and almost destroys himself. He decides he needs to return home to survive. He doesn’t expect to be welcomed well and to be treated like a work hand. Instead, his father welcomes him back with open arms. The elder son is not pleased with his dad’s actions; he is overcome with bitterness and jealousy which shows the reader that he might not be as virtuous as he thinks he is. The book The Return of the Prodigal Son analyses this story from several different perspectives. The first is

The last thing the author touches on is the way that the prodigal son is a reoccurring theme though the Bible, with characters such as Adam and Jesus. This paper will be focused on the story of the younger son; it will cover Rembrandt’s, Nouwen’s, and Biblical journeys similar to the younger son, as well as my own.

Rembrandt’s last painting before he died was the Prodigal Son. Nouwen traces Rembrandts journey as the younger son through his life style and choices as well as his art: the way it changed and the way it was perceived. Nouwen claims, “Together with his unfinished painting Simeon and the Child Jesus, the Prodigal Son shows the painters’s perception of his aged self” (Nouwen, 29). The author puts in another painting done by Rembrandt, but this one looks very different. The characters within do not look tired, but instead are younger and full of life. It is the portrait of a man with long curly hair and a woman, who the author says is Rembrants and his wife. Nouwen describes the two characters as “Drunk, with a half-open mouth and sexually greedy eyes… with his right hand he lifts a half-empty glass, while with his left